The Light Between Us (27 page)

“
It's in honor of the one you should have gotten . . . from Denise Parker, all those years ago,” Ruth explained, words tremulous.  “She was wrong, to treat you how she did.  She made you believe that she'd chosen you.”  She paused, swallowing hard, feeling as if she was talking herself into a hold.  “And – and I do.  Choose you, I mean.  I choose you.”

Derek shook his head, a stampede of emotions she couldn't name flying across his face.  He fingered the rose's soft crimson petals.  “That is – that is . . . absolutely amazing,” he murmured.  He raised his eyes to hers.  “Thank you.”

She sighed, glad that he wasn't offended by the gift, or the resurrection of the painful memory.  Then she drew in another deep breath and, with a thrill of fear, sank down onto one knee.

“
Derek Stone,” Ruth said, hearing her voice waver around her nervous grin, “will you marry me?”

Now his mouth was truly dangling wide.  Ruth felt her skin growing hot and itchy under the stifling weight of his silence, his uncomprehending stare.  Seconds, minutes – hell, hours could have been ticking by.  Eternity flashed by as her knee kissed the ground, heart bleeding at the unanswered question.

Why isn't he saying anything?
she thought desperately.  Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes, and she blinked against them furiously.  She wondered if she might be sick right there on the wharf.  Or maybe she'd pass out.  She found herself thinking she wouldn't mind being unconscious at all right at that moment.  Anything to be away from Derek's choking, excruciating silence.

At last he heaved an expansive breath that seemed to shatter whatever paralysis had invaded him and his face fissured into a miracle of upturned lips and dancing eyes.  “Yes,” he said at last.  Then he laughed, a musical, magical sound, and crowed it again, “Yes!”

Ruth's muscles went limp with relief, with happiness, and she thought she might not have been able to stand if Derek hadn't reached down and scooped her into his arms, lifting her clear off the ground and spinning her around.  Her laughter joined his as he twirled to a halt, leaning down and kissing her hard and deep, the ashen color of his skin giving way to his usual tawny complexion. 

“
Damn,” said Ruth as he drew away, words still breathy from relief, and the power of his kiss, “proposing is really terrifying, isn't it?” 

“
So terrifying,” laughed Derek.  “But not as terrifying as the thought of having lost you forever.”  He filled his hands with her wild curls.  “I love you, Ruth soon-to-be-Stone.”

“
Ruth Stone!” she exclaimed as the reality of what had just happened began to settle.  “I like the sound of that.”

He held out the boutonniere.  “Will you do me the honor?”

“
Gladly,” she said, taking the flower and pinning it to the chest of the gray sweater he wore beneath the leather jacket.

As she finished, Derek cupped her hands over his.  “This – the flower – I meant what I said before.  It really is amazing.”             

She blushed.  “I just felt like maybe that's where your distrust of women, of love, began.  And I wanted you to know that I saw that.  That I won't be like her.”

“
And I,” he said passionately, “will not act like I always have.”

“
I know.”  Ruth smiled up at him.  “I already see you doing just that.  Changing.  Becoming the beautiful man that you always were, deep down, beneath all the hurt.”

“
How do you do that?”  He leaned down, whispered the words in her ear, the tickle of his breath against her downy curls, the tendriling of her ear, making her shiver.  “How do you see the best of me when I've shown you so much of the worst?”

“
Because you showed me how,” she murmured in reply, kissing down his neck, delighting at how she was now the one to make him tremble.  Then she pulled back, looping her arms around his neck, fixing him with a playful gaze, raising a suggestive eyebrow.  “I can't wait for you to show me more – more of myself, and more of you.” 

Derek arched his own eyebrows.  “Mmm,” he said in approval.  “That sounds thrilling.  I think that I am the luckiest man alive.”             

“
You are,” Ruth said with a wide grin, crinkling the bridge of her nose.  “I am, after all, a hell of a woman.”

As she spoke the words, she felt them resonate more deeply within her than they ever had.  The truth of them rumbled down through her skin and synapses and sinews, rending the shroud of insecurities and fears that had kept her locked in a contracted sort of living, and penetrating into the sticky, holy dark of her soul, into the core of the core of the core of her being. 

And she knew, as she leaned into Derek's intoxicating warmth as they wandered back toward the spectacular sunbathed arch, his arm draped both gentle and strong across her shoulders, that she had found her truest home.

About the Author

Beth writes, paints, and dreams in Montana.  She is the author of the creative healing workbook
Life After Eating Disorder
, and is the owner of
Epiphany Art Studio
.  In addition to her quirky little family and her three naughty dogs, Beth is in love with luscious color, moon-gazing, and dancing wild.  She writes soul into flesh at
www.bethmorey.com
.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Heather Annais, Jamie Bonilla, Rachel Haas, and Bethany Paget, for being this book's doulas, midwives, and fairy godmothers.  And thanks to Clint Morey, for believing I could.